Saving Private Ryan as the Catalyst in America’s Social Identification

What makes Saving Private Ryan a good film in the text book is the faithfulness to the reality.What makes it great is that it represents the American cultural phenomena and the push forwards the identification of people as Americans. It did not just stop at simply shooting brutal scenes with fancies angles, but from a lens of sociology, this Oscar nominated film successfully created a group portrait of Americans, the diversities among them, the belief glue them as a whole, how they identify with the country and passes down this virtue to those comings. Some people claim that American has no history. This exaggeration in some degree reflects the lack of a common historic value in America. America is a country built on the new continent, and its people are all different and from different places. The history decides the eternal pursuit of Americans is individualism, but “nation” is a collective concept which requires everyone’s participation and in some circumstances, sacrifice of individuals. This dilemma is exanimated in Steven Spearberg in the most extreme setting——the war. Among all human activities, there is nothing more violent and cruel than wars. The wars are a collective exhibition of human actions in a circumstance without ordinary social constrains. Nowadays, aimed with the development cinematic technologies, war films become showcases of how far theatres can go to represent the real-time experience towards audiences. In this light, Saving Private Ryan has fulfilled the outer expectations for a war film. 

  But as a film depicts a story during World War II, it also serves successfully as one of the catalyst in America’s social identification. In the war, confronting the damage of individuals and the nation, reactions of every single people is most natural, reflecting their believes and their understanding of what does country mean to them. The best scenes exemplify American’s social identity in the movie are those interactions between team members.       


51Due网站原创范文除特殊说明外一切图文著作权归51Due所有；未经51Due官方授权谢绝任何用途转载或刊发于媒体。如发生侵犯著作权现象，51Due保留一切法律追诉权。